Get Your Money in Order

My personal financially philosophy used to be pretty simple, “If I have money, I’ll spend it. If not, I won’t!” Although I didn’t acquire credit card debt or live recklessly, I never had control of my finances. (Check out our Podcast on Personal Finance for Men.)

As a man, you must control your money.

Money is like oxygen. Without it, you can’t breathe.

Men are under attack. You could lose your job for offending the wrong person. Even tenured professors are not safe.

There are some simple and free ways to start figuring your money out.

1. Mint. Mint.com is free. With Mint.com, you enter in all of your bank accounts, credit card accounts, student loan accounts, and bills.

It takes a while to set everything up properly. You’ll need to itemize a few transactions until the computer learns what a merchant means. (For example, “CO-OP” is a grocery story. I had to manually note that a $54.98 transaction was for a grocery store. Eventually Mint.com learns these things.)

The best thing Mint.com does it track your spending per month. I was spending way more each month than I had realized.

Mint.com will also send you reminders when your bills are due and will send you alerts when a bank account is approaching a low balance. Mint.com will even remind you when you’re spending beyond your pre-set budget.

2. Credit Sesame. Credit Sesame is a free site (as in you don’t get autobilled like the scam site, FreeCrediteport.com). You load up your info, answer a few questions, and you’ll be given a credit score and your credit history.

You can model your credit score, estimating how it will rise and fall based on whether you pay off a credit card, pay off a student loan, or miss a payment.

3. Annual Credit Report. By law you’re entitled to a free copy of each credit report. (There are three main credit reporting agencies that lenders rely upon before extending credit.) Go to AnnualCreditReport.com.

In future posts I’ll explain what you should do once you have your credit report.

4. The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness. Some people don’t like Dave Ramsey’s message because he’s a Christian. I’ll learn something from any source and he offers straightforward advice that any man can put to good use. His $20 book will pay for itself several hundreds or thousands of times.

5. You. What’s your advice? If you have any links to useful sources, post them in the comments.

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During my reckless years, I didn’t own a credit card. Paying as I went kept me out of a lot of trouble.

Danger & Play

Yeah, that’s why I’m pretty anti-credit card. It’s hard to get into too much trouble if you avoid debt.

If you’re all cash, you may run out of money but you won’t get in a hole that is made deeper every month through late fees and interest charges.

Rob

Interest charges on those things is legalized theft. It’s atrocious. Great business plan though: market the product to impulsive weaklings (I need those shoes, car, whatever) who are insecure status whores.

Great writeup as usual man. I started using Mint recently and it’s made it extra convenient to keep track of my money. When you’re conscious of the numbers, it makes it easier for you to respect the dollars you have stashed away. The only hard one for me to remember all the time is cash.

I still don’t own a credit card. If I did, there’d be no point to it since I am only willing to spend what I have in hand.

anon1

the only point of a credit card is to build up credit history.

why is that important? because when you’re starting to need loans for investment purposes they want to see you’ve been active financially a lot [they make their fiat money off of your transactions]

my father taught me to keep a card and a couple of accounts and keep switching amounts between them often. the banks think you’re some kind of big deal and gives you more privileges and you don’t get into any debt.

when he first started running a business in the 70s most of his employees were content to let him sort out the payroll stuff and keep the money in the company account for them when they needed it.

the bank thought he was some kind of high roller and so over 30 years his credit history has been super solid.

ofcourse never use the card to pay off debt but having a large 0% overdraft is useful in those one time emergency situations [that you shouldn’t be getting in]

we’re poor as shit now but i’ve always remembered that lesson

Nick

I’ve been using Mint for 4 years, it’s been great to help me get a handle on finances. I also highly recommend Rob Black’s podcasts on iTunes. He’s a financial advisor in the SF Bay Area. Does free seminars called Money 101, and doesn’t sell you products. He’s in his 40s and specialized in tech so he appeals to younger audiences.

I got my first full-time job in 2008 and started putting money into my IRA heavily in 2009 during the crash. While most people were panicking, I was steadily investing. Things have picked up since then, so I already have over $100K towards retirement and another $20K saved. I also paid off close to $20K in grad school debt in 3 years. Living at home rent free for a year helped a lot with this. I’ve lowered my retirement contributions now and am focusing on building up my savings for long-term travel and monetizing several blogs. I make under $70K a year and live in a high tax state (California), but it’s still possible to get ahead if you’re smart and don’t live beyond your means. Victor Pride’s latest post emphasizes this.

Nick

One more thing about credit cards. The best explanation I’ve heard for how to build credit is to keep a balance on your account and pay the interest. Example: buy a TV for $1000, pay it off over the course of months or a year, end up paying $1400 (or whatever your interest rate makes it) in the end. Paying off your balance in it’s entirety every month isn’t going to help your credit. Sounds like a scam, I know. I use a credit card for convenience, but only make large purchases that I can pay off in full. I’m not buying a car or a house unless I can pay for it in cash. If that means renting for the rest of my life, that’s fine.

Vincent Rothstein

In addition to Mint I like to use Excel. I have a spreadsheet with each of my paydates and the corresponding bills that are due between paydays. This allows me to budget how much from each check to save for bills ~ ex divide out my rent so I don’t have to take such a big hit on the last paycheck of the month. While mint has bill reminders it does not allow to schedule in paydays, not sure why?